Thursday, August 16, 2007

guess who/what I found at the thrift store?

A fellow blogger! GTR of Raising Frolic!

Well, and jeans for Starflower and myself, and an aquarium, which will be the new and improved Turtle Hotel. But that's another post.

GTR happened to be on the way home to Duluth from a meeting in the cities, and she had stopped at the store in the town where I work to browse. I had decided to leave work early, because The Hermit had to leave in the afternoon for a meeting so I wanted to be home with the kids.

A few other errands probably were crucial for the timing of our chance meeting. I had to mail one bill at the post office, then swing by the feed store for sunflower seeds, dog food, and rabbit food. (Again, that's another post!) Then I parked downtown to put the garbage bill in the drop off box so I could save 41 cents. The drop off box is conveniently located next to the thrift store; I hadn't thought of stopping there today, but then I thought "Maybe, just maybe, they happen to have an aquarium." I walked in, did my usual browsing, picking out $5 and $3 jeans, and tried to figure out where they would put an aquarium if they had one. I had almost given up, when I remembered a back corner of the store I hadn't searched. Success! One ten gallon aquarium, $10. I was just grabbing it off the shelf when a nicely dressed, slightly familiar looking woman came up to me.

"Are you Deb?"

"Yes!" (where do I know her from? Think, think...)

"I'm Gina, from Raising Frolic!"

Wow. What are the odds of THAT happening! We talked a little while we paid for our purchases, and made open ended plans to get together in Duluth sometime in the future. She's pretty much the way I expected her to be, very nice, soft spoken and down-to-earth. It was a real, unexpected pleasure to meet her!

Gina- our chance meeting really made my day! Thanks for having the courage to come up and ask me if I was who you thought I was-- I don't know if I could have done it! :)

9 comments:

R.Powers said...

A totally chance meeting? Did she recognize you from your profile pic?
What are the odds of that?

Deb said...

FC- Yes. We've e-mailed and talked about getting together before, but never quite worked anything out. This was totally by chance, and she must have recognized me from the profile.

I'm still amazed. This must have been meant to be!

LauraHinNJ said...

Rabbit food? Have I missed something?

lol!

Neat that you met a fellow blogger. I had something similar happen once on a bird walk in the Pine Barrens... someone recognized me from my blog - very strange - I felt like a rock star for a second!

Deb said...

LauraHinNJ- I got a phone call at work this morning. It was Starflower, saying "Mom, we found this baby bunny, and Dad said we could keep it...could you pick up some rabbit food?"

How could I say no? Although this bunny is very small, and they found it because a cat had dragged it in, and the woman at the feed store told me wild rabbits are much harder to raise than domestic...but the kids' hearts are in the right place. I'm hoping for the best.

gtr said...

Hi, Deb! Great to run into you today like that! Such a small world, eh!? It really is rather bizarre timing, but very fun!

So, is it good to be "found at a thrift store"? Makes me feel a little like a surplus coffee cup. Ha!

I love to shop at thrift stores, but don't think I'd want to be an item there awaiting a new home. Don't you just wonder about the stories of some of that stuff, who owned it before and how it got there? Stuff definitely live on...

Deb said...

GTR- Yeah, I kind of wonder about the life histories of thrift store items too. I have a T-shirt, purchased from the thrift store in Bruno (if you're ever driving up Highway 23, check it out!) that is from some Angry Beavers rugby team in Bemidji a year ago. I like it because it's one of those super soft T's, and their logo is pretty cute. Picture a caricature of an angry beaver...

Anyway, great to meet you face to face! Hope to see you again soon!

Larry said...

We hardly have any bloggers in CT. that blog about nature etc.-Maybe I'll have to move.

Anonymous said...

Such sweet serendipity. Me, I'm afraid to meet bloggers for real.

Deb said...

Larry- I'm probably the only blogger that lives within 60 miles or so of here, that I know of anyway. GTR is probably at least that far, so our meeting was just dumb luck, or fate!

Pablo- I hope your one experience didn't sour you on meeting bloggers. If we ever make it down to one of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds festivals by Mansfield, I'd love to meet up somewhere.